Tangs bullying butterfly?

[Murica]

Just got a yellow pyramid butterfly and all my tangs hate him. I thought they were compatible.. Hoping they lighten up soon but am I wrong about the compatibility?

 

[sternicus]

Just got a yellow pyramid butterfly and all my tangs hate him. I thought they were compatible.. Hoping they lighten up soon but am I wrong about the compatibility?

While they can be aggressive, in my case any aggression between my yellow tang and pyramid butterfly subsided in about 4 days. They still do some bumping here and there

 

[Fudsey]

I have heard that a small mirror against the glass can stop the bullying.

 

[botheboss]

In my experience some tangs don’t like big bodied fish. Especially when they are grazers and or picking at rocks as they would be naturally competing with them in the wild. You really should to condition fish in some kind of acclamation box so everyone get used to each other.

 

[radiata]

Just got a yellow pyramid butterfly and all my tangs hate him. I thought they were compatible.. Hoping they lighten up soon but am I wrong about the compatibility?

I think you'd have done better to put the Peaceful rated butterfly in your tank before you put in any Semi-Aggressive rated tangs. It would have had more time to establish itself, and any newcomer Tangs would have been less likely to bother with it.

 

[Murica]

While they can be aggressive, in my case any aggression between my yellow tang and pyramid butterfly subsided in about 4 days. They still do some bumping here and there

It seems the aggression is subsiding for the most part.

 

[pickupman66]

it will subside. a mirror helped me in the past. I have kept pyramids and they are one of my favorite fish. I want another one badly.

 

[Syed123]

Pyramids are too passive. Coupled with their Tang like shape, it can end with the established tangs stressing and killing it. Yeah put it in the acclimation box. That would be your best chance. Another thing that can also help if you have the space is to add more pyramid butterflyfish. It will spread the aggression. For example, my purple tang does chase my two pyramids once in a while. But since there are two of them they don't get stressed out and have little to no damage done to them.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Agree with @Fudsey and @pickupman66 .....try hanging a mirror and the tang will hopefully refocus his attacks on the "new tang" that is in his space.

 

[john472]

I have a yellow tang and he is a chicken( fears the veggie clip, hides most of the day. ) until a similar sized fish gets in then its game on! Yes, I said 'size' I don't think(from experience tried to add coral beauty) it cares about shape or species, but the size of a fish (coral beauty)sets it off to kill mode! Going to reset tank stock this summer and just get a lemon peel angel.
I was told by various sources that tangs will only be aggressive with other tangs of similar shape. I've tried putting the tang in time out and rescaped the tank(at the same time) to throw it off but no luck it just doesn't like fish as large as it is. BEWARE getting ANY FISH WITH IT'S OWN BUILT IN SHIV!
(current size of yellow tang is 4 inches from nose to tail actual body is only about 3 and a half inch. tank size is 75g.)
stock: 1 yellow tang
2 clowns(2 inches long)
3 asur damsel
1 bangia cardinal.
Thats it...

 

[Murica]

it will subside. a mirror helped me in the past. I have kept pyramids and they are one of my favorite fish. I want another one badly.

Ever since the Hawaii ban they're few and far between. I was lucky enough to scoop this guy up

 

[John494]

In the past, I added a copper band butterfly to my tank which already had 4 tangs. The tangs were bumping and harassing the butterfly for a few days (I think about a week). I felt that the tangs were just trying to show dominance and "put the butterfly in it's place" and "squabbles" like this will probably happen in nature, so as worried as I was, I decided to leave it alone. The harassing did stop after about a week and the butterfly was getting along with all the other fish afterwards. The butterfly was living happily in my tank for about 4 months. Unfortunately, recently, the butterfly stopped eating (still don't know why?) and eventually died

John

 

[DSC reef]

Was the butterfly in the 75 with 4 tangs? Most likely died from bullying. I have a 75 with one tang and a butterfly fish would not do well. If stopped eating I'm sure the aggression from the tangs would be the culprit.

 

[Murica]

Just an update, everyone gets along now. My butterfly is so weird, whenever I feed, he comes to the surface and wants to be pet [emoji38]. He'll go on his side under my fingers until I scratch him, then he'll just stay there until I stop ha